Could Texas be big player with winner-take-all GOP primary?

Rick Santorum touted the chance of Texas becoming a winner-take-all state in allocating its big cache of delegates as “a game-changer for us,” but a supporter pushing the move says it’s “bigger than any one candidate.”

“It allows Texas to totally determine who the nominee is,” said Weston Martinez, a State Republican Executive Committee member from San Antonio.

Although he’s a Santorum backer (he previously supported Gov. Rick Perry), Martinez cited not only Santorum but leading candidate Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. He said a Texas victory for the former U.S. House speaker could lead Gingrich to declare “I’ve got the juice to go to a brokered convention.”

Changing the Texas rules – which now provide for a candidate to get delegates based on vote percentage in the primary – first would require a petition signed by 15 of the 62 Executive Committee members for an emergency meeting, which would have to be held in 14 days.

Martinez said that by his count, “We’ve got the 15, and then some.” He said supporters of the change are formalizing matters and determining how to move forward.

Texas has 152 delegates that are allocated based on the results of the election, plus three who are at-large and can commit to whom they choose.

Republican Party of Texas spokesman Chris Elam said an Executive Committee meeting would be only the first step in changing the allocation of delegates.

The Republican National Committee and the U.S. Department of Justice also would have to approve the change, Elam said – just as they approved changing to a proportional system of allocating delegates.

The state GOP submitted the change to a proportional system for approval last October and again after the ruling in the redistricting case, Elam said.

Before changing to proportional allocation of delegates, Texas had a modified winner-take-all system. That allowed a candidate who didn’t finish first to collect a delegate in a congressional district if he or she got more than 20 percent of the vote in that district.

“Ultimately, our school of thought is, it’s still going to be a close race when it comes to Texas,” Martinez said. “Clearly there’s a feeling in Texas that we’ve constantly been pushed to the sidelines and not had an ability to be involved … to the degree we feel we should based on our representation, and this is our opportunity to do that.”